Lecture 6: Renewables

(The Electric Grid)

Kelly T. Sanders

September 24, 2020

Schedule
Thursday, September 24th Tuesday, September 29nd
Due today: Due today:
• Nothing (But Renewables quiz due • Homework 6
Sunday) In-class: Renwables II
• In-class: Renewables I • News of the Day
News of the Day • Discussion of Homework 6
• Environmental impacts of renewable Assigned
electricity & grid concerns
• Assign Homework 6 • Watch Power Grid Lecture, Quiz by
Friday
Assigned
• Homework 6 due Tuesday by
12:00pm

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 The Environmental Impacts of
Big Hydro

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The Three Gorges Dam is the biggest power
plant in the world

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 This project markedly changes the flow of the
Yangtze River

Image from April 15, 2009, from International

Space Station (NASA)

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Credit: NASA/JSC ENE505 5
A brief history •• Conceived by Sun Yat-sen in 1919
Between 1940s-1960s, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation helped
the Chinese continue the planning
• 1994: Dam Construction begins without support of US or World
Bank
• Contentious even within China; National People's Congress
approved the dam in 1992, but out of 2,633 delegates:
– 1,767 voted in favor,
– 177 voted against
– 664 abstained,
– 25 members did not vote

• Located at Yichang, the starting point of the middle Yangtze

River
• Once completed, the dam would be the largest in the world: as
high as a sixty-story building (607 ft tall), as wide as five Hoover
Dams (1.3 miles wide), reservoir ~400 miles long
• ~$24-29 Billion USD, 22.5 GW in size since 2012 (up from
original specs, thirty-two 700 MW turbine + two 50 MW turbines);
includes a ship lift as of 2015

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Relocation of people
Destruction of cultural
artifacts
Rise in waterborne
diseases
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Social & Cultural Impacts
• 1.3 million people were displaced (government offered
small relocation allowances)
• Submerged ~ 13 cities, 140 towns and 1,350 villages,
according to International Rivers
• People generally relocated to regions with steeper slopes,
poorer soils and decreased agricultural income potential
• Ancient villages destroyed, temple sites that would be
drowned.
• Archaeologists and historians say ~ 1,300 important
historical sites will be submerged, including 4,000-year-old
homeland of ancient Ba people and Fengdu Ghost city, a
historical city known for its large complex of shrines,
temples, and monasteries dedicated to the afterlife
• A blood parasite transmitted by snails to humans is
flourishing due to decreased flows downstream (can cause
schistosomiasis: fever, appetite and weight loss, abdominal
pain, bloody urine, muscle and joint pain, along with
nausea, a persistent cough and diarrhea.
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 Environmental Impacts
Landslides • Has triggered dozens of landslides due to increased pressure on land;
raising and lowering of the water level in the reservoir destabilizes the
land around it
• Chinese government is making large investments to improve land
integrity

Earthquake • Sits on two major fault lines

Activity • Rising & falling of water levels have induced seismicity
• In the seven months following the 2006 increase in water level,
geologists recorded 822 tremors around the reservoir
Biodiversity • 300 species of fish in the Yangtze River, which cannot cross dam barrier
Threats • 47 rare or endangered species in area that are protected by Chinese
national law
• Threatens more than 400 plant species (home to home to 6,388
species of plants, 57% endangered)
• Has contributed to the decline of the baiji dolphin, which is so rare that
it is considered functionally extinct, as well as habitats for Yangtze river
dolphin, the Yangtze sturgeon, and the Siberian crane

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Environmental
Impacts
Silting • Reservoir at Three Gorges accumulates an average~700
million tons of silt each year
• Fear is that silting could threaten life of dam
• Engineers have designed a series of openings (i.e., sluice
gates) at the base of the dam, but these have never been
tested at this scale
Changes in Water • Inundation/flooding of towns -> pollution export to river
Quality • Blocks water from flowing, so pollution sits
• Large algal blooms due to build up of nutrients and pollution
• Lower dissolved oxygen content

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 Opposition to Wind and Solar
Why do some people (including environmentalists) hate
utility scale solar PV & wind projects?

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 Wind and solar projects take up a lot of land
• The power density of renewable power
is 1 to 2 orders of magnitude lower than
that for fossil fuel power

• Wind and solar generation require at

least 10 times as much land per unit of
power produced than coal- or natural
gas-fired power plants, including land
disturbed to produce and transport the
fossil fuels [Brookings]

• Solar photovoltaic cells have a power

density of about 10 W/m2 in sunny
locations and wind’s power density is
around 1-2 W/m2 in US

• Wind and solar generation must be

located in areas with good wind / solar
resources, which may come into conflict Note this is a log scale!
with wildlife, recreation, scenic views,
etc.

Source: Brookings (2020), RENEWABLES, LAND USE, AND LOCAL

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OPPOSITION IN THE UNITED STATES ENE505 11
We get a lot of energy from fossil fuels without a
lot of people seeing the infrastructure
• Current fossil-based
energy occupies little
land given its central
role in US economy
• Estimates from 2010-
and 2015: US fossil
fuel, nuclear power,
and hydro systems
collectively occupy
0.5% of U.S. land area
• An estimated 17.6
million people, 5% of
the U.S. population,
lived within one mile of
an operating oil or gas
well (and much less
coal) in 2014

Source: Brookings (2020), RENEWABLES, LAND USE, AND LOCAL

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OPPOSITION IN THE UNITED STATES ENE505 12
Renewables require a lot of land in places that
haven’t historically produced lots of energy

At the end of 2015, nearly 1.4

million homes in the United
States were within five miles of
a utility-scale wind project

Source: Brookings
(2020), RENEWABLES,
LAND USE, AND LOCAL
OPPOSITION IN THE
UNITED STATES

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 There is a lot of opposition to land-
intensive projects
Opposition to wind:
• Modern wind turbines are huge: most new turbines being
installed in US today are height of 500 ft tall (~35 story
building) & best in open plains and on ridgetops
• Offshore wind will be bigger! (GE designing an offshore
turbine that will be > 850 feet tall, with blades longer than
a football field)
• Concerns: turbines’ noise and shadow flicker, impact on
scenic views, potential declines in property values, and
harm to birds & migration patterns
• Solutions: Moving offshore; space between wind turbines
can be used for other purposes, like agriculture or
grazing
Opposition to solar:
• Solar projects in desert have faced lots of opposition due
to concerns about habitat loss for rare plants and animals
• Solutions: co-locating with buildings or agriculture;
floating panels
Opposition to Transmission lines:
• Projects have to move electrons to where people live!

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California passed a huge bill that took effect in
Jan 2020 with residential solar requirement
• First-of-its-kind solar mandate In CA: new code requires new homes
to be built with a solar electricity system
• As of Jan 2020, new construction homes (single family and multi-
family) are required to have solar PV system as an electricity
source.
• Needs to be large enough to meet the annual electricity usage
• Cost of a newly constructed single-family home will increase but
CEC estimates that single-family homeowners will have a net
decrease in total costs over home life:
– Additional upfront cost to new single-family homes: $8,400
– Cost equivalent in mortgage payments: $40 per month
– Electricity bill savings: $80 per month
– Net savings: $40 per month, $500 per year
• There are exceptions: community solar
• And there are big exceptions: In Feb 2020 CA regulators approved a
proposal to allow builders to construct homes without solar panels
by allowing utilities to build bigger solar projects instead

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 Kelly T. Sanders, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
ktsanders@usc.edu